Poor Elijah’s Almanack: Twenty-first annual emperor awards

Anthony Bourdain and the team of “Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown” accept the award for outstanding informational series or special at the Television Academy’s Creative Arts Emmy Awards at the Nokia Theater L.A. LIVE on Saturday, Aug. 16, 2014, in Los Angeles.
Phil McCarten — Invision for the Television Academy — AP Images

The Tony and Obie Awards honor Broadway, off-Broadway, and off-off-Broadway hits. Tack on several more “offs,” and you approach the prestige associated with the Emperor Awards. Named for the monarch who paraded in his underwear, the Emperors celebrate both the stars performing on education’s stage and the fans applauding their performance.

Nothing undergirds school reform more than education research. The 2014 Sisyphus Prize for Perpetual Research recognizes a “scientist” who concluded that “how well and how much children engaged in roughhousing predicted their first grade achievement better than kindergarten test scores.” This finding will interest both companies selling kindergarten tests and budget watchers as it would allow schools to assess academic performance by simply letting children wrestle each other to the ground.

Several contenders vied for the Archimedes Eureka Honorarium. Honorable mention goes to a “research-based intervention” for documenting the “difference attendance makes in academic achievement.” Not only were truant students arrested more often, but “improved attendance also led to improved grades.” This year’s Eureka, however, spotlights a study investigating the effects of doubling math class time. In a stunning development, spending twice as much time on math every day yielded “higher gains on math assessments.” Equally shocking, once students return to a single math class schedule, “these gains diminish.”

Our next award, the Bill and Melinda Gates Silicon Star, pays homage to “behavior management software” that “instantly provides feedback to students about their behavior in class, rewards good conduct, generates reports” for parents, and automatically sends a copy of the report to the principal. While teachers have always been able to respond to and reward student behavior, write notes to parents, and even send actual students to the principal, the new software represents a twenty-first century upgrade. Now as they’re trying to teach and manage an “unruly” class, teachers just stop and click on various icons indicating good and bad behaviors for each student’s avatar. Running scores appear on students’ iPods and tablets, as well as on a classroom display, enabling everyone to track their fluctuating behavior tallies. Naturally, none of this will distract students or teachers from learning and teaching.

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Technology takes another bow as the 2014 John Dillinger Medallion salutes the authors of “The Benefits of Video Games,” which recommends games involving “first person shooters.” Apparently, as players stalk and scope their victims, they “improve three-dimensional thinking,” an “important predictor of success in STEM fields.” Experts acknowledge that “plenty of studies” also “link game playing to anti-social behaviors,” suggesting the public should exercise caution in the presence of skillful scientists, engineers, and mathematicians who enjoy playing Castle Wolfenstein.

Despite experts’ guarantees that “all students” can graduate “college and career ready,” most students with disabilities are “performing well below grade level.” Secretary of Education Arne Duncan insists it shouldn’t be that way because “when students with disabilities are held to high expectations and have access to a robust curriculum, they excel.” Yes, the reason students with profound developmental, physical, psychological, and intellectual impairments don’t learn as much as other students isn’t that they’re learning disabled. It’s that schools and teachers aren’t expecting them to succeed. For Mr. Duncan’s profound insight and consistent demonstration of education expertise, we present the prestigious Phineas T. Barnum Citation.

Since regulations require all students to pass academic tests, one state devised a procedure to accommodate an impaired high school student whose disabilities left her “functioning at the cognitive level of a 16 to 18 month old.” Teachers practiced moving the student’s hand “over and over until she could place a Post-It note on the correct answer.” The school then videotaped the student placing the Post-It note “independently and sent it to the state to be scored.” The Charles Ponzi Trophy acknowledges their commitment to authentic assessment.

We turn next to the National Center for Family Literacy, formerly known as the NCFL, which recently renamed itself the National Center for Families Learning, now known as the NCFL. The Order of the Tempest in a Teacup toasts their confidence that this will bring the organization’s “mission to life in everyday language.”

Competition for the George Orwell Creative Use of Language Prize is always fierce. Last year’s winner medaled for her campaign to purge smoking from children’s literature, specifically Santa’s pipe in “Twas the Night before Christmas.” This year we spotlight a principal who curtailed school Halloween festivities. She explained that some parents consider Halloween a “spiritual holiday,” and the school needed to avoid endorsing specific religious observances. For readers unfamiliar with Halloween at school, that’s the day children dress up as X-Men and Elsa, and stuff themselves with candy, or carrots, depending on local obesity policies. When the cancellation provoked an uproar, district officials reversed the principal’s decision and reinstated Halloween on the grounds that its festivities “advance students’ knowledge and appreciation of the roles that religious and cultural heritage have played in the social and historical development of our civilization.” We’re still talking about the day students dress up as X-Men and Elsa, and stuff themselves. Orwell 2014 pays tribute to school leaders’ willingness to wrap a children’s costume party in such high ideals.

As our festivities conclude, remember that if you find yourself agreeing with any of our winners, their Emperor is also yours. Remember, too, that each of us at some time deserves an Emperor of our own.

Even Poor Elijah and me.

Peter Berger teaches English in Weathersfield, Vermont. Poor Elijah would be pleased to answer letters addressed to him in care of the editor.